How the heck did squad do this?

[Guest Brody_Peffley]

How the heck did squad get planets to orbit and to actually be a sphere when your on it. I don't understand squads amazing work.. Did they use the space graphics toolkit? I was thinking of getting it but I can't decide if squad did it themselves or they used a toolkit. I just want to know for a space game unrelated to KSP

[aNewHope]

The planets in KSP don't actually orbit Kerbol (The sun). They move on rails. The rest is a simple use of orbital mechanics in the physics engine.

[Technical Ben]

Yeah. They just did a list of numbers in a database. They then adjust those numbers (to make a circle of co-ordinates). Then they get the graphics/game to read from the list. It reads the position of the planet. Then after each second (or game tick) you change the number (again, by the appropriate amount for an orbit). Then draw it there. You could put the planet anywhere this way.